Local Sports Brands Are Involved In Children'S Wear Market. Is There Any Drama?

Costs are rising, inventories are high, and performance is slowing down. The local sporting goods enterprises, which had been growing rapidly for nearly ten years, met the crisis in 2011.

"This industry is overheated, and there are too many enterprises." Liu Xiang, deputy director of PEAK sports public relations, told reporters. From 2010 to 2011, the whole sports industry is expecting too optimistic, overinvestment and competition becoming more and more intense, making this once "Red Sea" a target of public criticism. Therefore, looking for new profit growth points has become the next goal of the local sporting goods industry. At present, local sporting goods companies are already eyeing them. Children's wear Is this going to be a treasure for them? This topic will be further analyzed.

The fast growing children's clothing market is becoming a "blue ocean". CIC's report shows that China Children's wear market The composite annual growth rate is 22%, and it is expected to grow to 306 billion 100 million yuan in 2013, one of the fastest growing categories of clothing.

However, the children's wear market is becoming more and more crowded. Apart from the existing children's wear enterprises, sports giants Nike, Adidas, local leisure wear enterprises, Semir, Metersbonwe, and wedding birds have also entered. Recently, a hot topic is that more and more local sports brands are also gathered here: Lining, Anta, 360 degree, XTEP and so on have launched their children's wear series. Coupled with the brand of children's clothing abroad, the whole market is not calm.

For new entrants, local Sports brand Enterprises, now enter the children's clothing market, is there any drama?

"Children involved" craze

There are several ways for local sports enterprises to do children's wear: one is the self operation represented by Anta and 360 degrees, the establishment of children's wear department starts from scratch; the two is cooperation, such as the joint venture between Kappa and paramount, and the three is brand authorization, for example, Lining gives the brand to third parties, and receives certain authorization fees.

In 2012, the major sports brands were "overweight" in the field of children's wear.

In April, XTEP announced that the XTEP children's clothing was launched. The 360 degree children's clothing signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the CCTV children's channel to increase the promotion efforts. Lining gave the exclusive authorization of Lining's children's brand to Tianjin wide cat children's Articles Co., Ltd. for a period of ten years.

All enterprises are not stingy in investing in children's clothing. Chen Zhicheng, general manager of the 360 degree children's clothing business center, told the newspaper reporter that 9% of the listed fund raised (about HK $180 million) was invested in the research and development of children's wear brand. It is understood that the 360 degree children's wear center was established in May 2009, and now there are 1500 outlets in the country, of which 1320 are children's wear stores and 180 are located in a larger franchise store. The Anta children's clothing store grew from 228 at the end of 2009 to 632 at the end of 2011. In addition, XTEP also expects to open about 100 children's wear retail stores in two or three domestic cities in the year.

There are several ways for local sports enterprises to do children's wear. The first is the self operation represented by Anta and 31st degree, the establishment of children's wear department starts from scratch. The second is cooperation, such as the joint venture between Kappa and paramount, and the third is brand authorization, such as Lining's awarding of the brand to the third party, and a certain authorized fee. Zhang Qing, the founder of sports consulting firm, told the reporter. Nowadays, the number and sales volume of major enterprises are increasing steadily, and the market is still at the initial stage of volume growth.

Channel risk

Sports enterprises choose to re establish distribution channels, which can reduce their impact on their original distribution channels. However, in order to rapidly expand the market, many enterprises have reduced the threshold of choosing distributors or franchisees.

In the face of the vigorous progress of local sporting goods companies, some different voices also expressed concern.

"Interlacing is like mountain crossing." Zhang told reporters that compared with the local sporting goods enterprises focusing on children's clothing business, although they have advantages in production, technology, operation, management and brand influence, there are always differences between sporting goods and children's clothing in terms of operation mode and brand promotion. Mature clothing enterprises entering the field of children's clothing may not be as successful as Semir's balbala. According to him, in March 2012, Bosideng has sold only 1 years of children's clothing business.

If children are self-employed, channels will be the biggest problem for sports brands. Anta group responsible person in an interview with our reporter said that Anta do children's clothing, the original channel will be combined with independent channels. However, the main channel of domestic sports enterprises is street shops. At present, the channels for children's wear in China are mainly shopping malls and shops, and street stores are not mainstream. After all, children's clothing in shopping malls provides children's clothing options, while only one store stores, it is difficult to form clusters. So, how many channels of experience and connections can be copied from sports enterprises? "Zhang Qing said.

It is understood that self employment of children's sports goods enterprises, most of them have established a new channel system, the way of investment is also different. In the sports industry, enterprises will take the order of sales, and children's clothing investment will participate in the fair to attract new dealers.

"Sports enterprises choose to re-establish their distribution channels, which can reduce their impact on their original distribution channels. However, in order to rapidly expand the market, many enterprises reduce the threshold of choosing distributors or franchisees, which may cause greater losses to enterprises. In addition, the running in between enterprises and new dealers is inevitable. Yang Dayun, President of UTA Fashion Management Group, told reporters.

It is understood that the threshold of Anta children's wear is much lower than Anta sports. In Beijing, 300 thousand yuan can open a more than 40 square meter store, which is 7 yuan lower than the 1 million yuan required by Anta sports. The contract is signed in one year and the discount will be lower. In the earnings report of Anta group in 2011, it did not reflect the specific performance of the children's clothing business that had been in operation for 3 years, and only announced the number of its shops.

"Lower franchise threshold, short-term contracts, the number of new shops, there is bound to be part of the loss. How many good dealers join it? In 2012, sports products were not good enough to do, but some people in the circle actually changed to do children's wear, but the scale of the transformation was not large. A sporting goods dealer told reporters.

Whether cooperation or authorization, the interests of the two sides can reach a consensus, is still a challenge. In 2010, Lining intended to enter the children's clothing market. At that time, Li Ningzheng was busy with brand remolding, and launched the new logo of "post-90s Lining", unable to run his own children's clothing. Finally, he took the business mode of authorized operation, which was less risky, and chose paramount as a partner. When the 3 year contract expires, Lining still makes the brand authorization in his way of children's clothing, but he has not renewed his contract with Parker. He has chosen his partner again. "Children's clothing is a new growth point, but Lining's strategy today is to focus on core business, so for children's clothing, Lining is weak, making brand authorization only to get some benefits." Zhang Qing said.

Ma Gang, a well-known shoe and clothing expert, points out that the main products of paramount are located in the middle and high-end market, and the operation strategy is not done quickly through the rapid expansion of channels, which is different from the idea of fast track in traditional Chinese low-end clothing enterprises. Parker lane has 18 children's clothing industry, and her style has been formed. By contrast, Lining is one of the broad cat's shareholders. Lining's control over wide cats is stronger than that of Parker.

"Every shopping mall is willing to enter Nike, the development of children's clothing channels is much more difficult than they are. We do not want to expand too fast. Our strategy is conservative but safe. If funds and manpower fail to meet certain standards, we will not rush to open new stores, and we are not willing to make the brand that is authorized. Faced with the challenge, Han Ying, director of the kappa kids brand of paramount, responded.